Trigger Warning for descriptions of sexual assault and explicit victim-blaming and sexual assault apologism.

Earlier this week, a jury ruled against a woman who sued the Girls Gone Wild franchise on the grounds that they damaged her reputation when they included footage of her being forcibly disrobed in one of their DVDs (h/t). The woman, identified in the case as Jane Doe, never gave consent for her breasts to be showed on film, audibly refused to lift up her top for cameras, and never signed a consent form. Nevertheless, when another woman came up from behind Doe and suddenly pulled her tank top down — sexually assaulted her — her breasts were exposed and the footage was used.

A St. Louis Circuit Court jury deliberated 90 minutes before ruling against the woman, 26, on the third day of the trial. Lawyers on both sides argued the key issue was consent, with her side saying she absolutely refused to give it and the defense claiming she silently approved by taking part in the party.

The woman, identified in court files as Jane Doe, was 20 when she went to the former Rum Jungle bar in May 2004 and was filmed by a “Girls Gone Wild” video photographer. Now married, the mother of two girls and living in the St. Charles area, Doe sued in 2008 after a friend of her husband’s reported that she was in one of the videos.

“I am stunned that this company can get away with this,” Doe said after the verdict. “Justice has not been served. I just don’t understand. I gave no consent.”

But Patrick O’Brien, the jury foreman, told a reporter later that an 11-member majority decided that Doe had in effect consented by being in the bar and dancing for the photographer. In a trial such as this one, agreement by nine of 12 jurors is enough for a verdict.

“Through her actions, she gave implied consent,” O’Brien said. “She was really playing to the camera. She knew what she was doing.”

There is something gravely, gravely wrong in the U.S. court system when a jury foreman can say that a sexual assault victim “knew what she was doing” and therefore deserved what she got, as a means for deciding how he did in the case.

There is a long, well-documented history of coercion in the making of the Girls Gone Wild films. The women who are featured in the videos are not paid, but rather compensated with tee-shirts. They are plied with drinks by the crews, and then incessantly cajoled and egged on until they do what the cameramen want. Oh, and the company’s sleazy founder Joe Francis has been informally accused of rape. There’s no doubt that some women do actually want and choose to be featured in the films. But their agency and choices don’t erase or excuse Girls Gone Wild’s long track record of gaining “consent” that is not informed, meaningful, or enthusiastic, from women who are known and desired to be in no state of mind to make a decision that very well may stick with them for the rest of their lives.

But that’s not even what we’re talking about here. Girls Gone Wild’s history is relevant, as this case is a part of a long line of purposefully coercive, non-consensual, and potentially illegal behavior. But the issue in Jane Doe’s lawsuit wasn’t the more complex one of whether her consent was meaningful and adequate under the terms it was obtained. The issue is that there was no consent. And Girls Gone Wild knew that, and just didn’t give a shit.

I don’t know the law well enough to know whether or not the jury made the technically correct decision. But I do know that something is seriously wrong here when a woman’s sexual assault is used by a company for profit, without her permission. I do know that something is seriously wrong when “implied consent” — in spite of explicit non-consent, no less — is taken as a valid legal defense. And I do know that something is seriously wrong when a jury decides that a woman who is in public has no legal right to how her body is used by other people.

It’s rare that classic victim-blaming memes are used quite so blatantly and explicitly in court. Usually, lawyers try to be a bit more covert about exactly what kind of prejudices they’re playing into. I feel as though this example is so clear that it hardly needs my parsing, but I’ve been known to overestimate other people’s understanding of rape culture.

When O’Brien despicably said, “She was really playing to the camera. She knew what she was doing,” what he was saying was, “She was being a tease. She totally wanted it. And if she didn’t actually plan to give it up, she deserved to have it taken from her against her will.” What he was saying was, “Look what a slut she was being, dancing in front of our cameras.” What he was saying was, “She’s a slut, and sluts deserve what they get.”

One has to wonder how he sleeps at night. But what went ignored in his argument, and apparently by the rest of the jury, was the simple fact put forth by Doe’s lawyer:

“Other girls said it was OK. Not one other one said, ‘No, no,’” Evans said. “She is entitled to go out with friends and have a good time and not have her top pulled down and get that in a video.”

This truth, that women have a right to be in public without being assaulted and then having their assaults distributed for profit, seems irrefutable to everyone who views women as human beings. But clearly it’s an easy thing to dismiss for Girls Gone Wild and the jury who sided with them. In their eyes, women who leave their homes, who have the audacity to dance for cameras, who “know what they’re doing,” simply cannot be violated, because they have no right to consent or non-consent at all.

I’ve been known to critique quite a few government media campaigns against sexual and domestic violence. Usually, such critiques are incited by a focus on potential victims rather than perpetrators, which tells women it is their responsibility to keep themselves from being raped. And sometimes, anti-violence campaigns that are directed at men really just seem to have the wrong focus. A lot of campaigns that supposedly work against gendered violence actually promote as many dangerous messages and myths as they challenge. And those campaigns are definitely worth analysis and criticism.

But here’s how you don’t critique a campaign aimed at stopping male violence against women: by saying that its sexiness may just inspire men to rape more.

That’s how Copyranter slammed the above poster, created by the UK Home Office a couple years back and recently spotted in men’s bathroom at a bar. The ad shows a presumably white woman from the torso down, wearing nothing but a white pair of underwear with a red “no entry” sign, and reads “Have sex with someone who hasn’t said yes to it, and the next place you enter could be prison. If you have sex without consent you could end up going prison, for rape. If you don’t get a yes don’t have sex.” Copyranter quipped:

Call me confused, but showing a half-naked woman in a rape awareness ad being viewed by plastered horny pissing men is just bloody stupid, right?

The somewhat jokey but still disgusting implication is that drunk, straight, cis men who have their dicks out for completely non-sexual reasons simply can’t control themselves around sexual imagery. Further, that the desire for sexual contact is what actually causes men to rape women, rather than misogyny and the desire for power over them.

Over at Adrants, Steve Hall extends the argument:

[Copyranter]‘s got a point. And this long-running bathroom stall British Home Office campaign does a poor job achieving its goal In fact, all it does is make men think more about sex. Because, as we all know, men don’t need much in the way of motivation when it comes to wanting sex.

This is not to say men are just walking hard ons looking for a play but it’s a well known fact sexual imagery makes men think about sex. Why a rape awareness campaign would go even remotely near the use of sexual imagery is a bit baffling

He then goes on to make a rather disgusting and potentially triggering joke about prison rape against convicted rapists. Lovely.

First of all, I have to say that while opinions on this one will undoubtedly vary, I don’t find the above image to be particularly “sexual.” As a matter of fact, I happen to view women’s bodies as exactly that — bodies — rather than an inherent visual representation of human sexuality. The woman’s pose is not provocative in any way, and I don’t see much about the image that could be described as particularly “hot” or designed to titillate. Secondly, I have to say that while I agree with Steve on the count that images intended to gratuitously arouse and excite would be a ludicrous in an anti-rape campaign, I sometimes think that sexual imagery can be used extremely effectively. To argue that sexual scenarios cannot ever be used in anti-rape campaigns when many rapes are committed in contexts that contain sexual elements (flirting, kissing, other consensual sexual activity) is both bizarre and limiting.

But again, the real problem with this line of criticism is the argument that any image of women’s bodies will invariably make straight men think about sex, and further that thinking about sex is what inspires men to rape. The argument seems to be not that the message is ineffective because men will not absorb it when thinking about sex — though I still find this argument problematic, as I’m incredibly disturbed by the the assertion that most men will be contemplating getting it on while reading text about rape. Rather, I read it as going a lot farther, to suggesting that making men think about sex at all is dangerous, and that male arousal is the antithesis of any anti-rape campaign.

Because, no, guys. The way to stop rape isn’t to get straight men to stop being sexual beings. It’s to get straight guys who don’t view women as human or consent as an absolute requirement for sexual contact to start doing just that. And the idea that it’s “stupid” to show drunk, horny guys sexual imagery when you don’t want them to rape is actually a hell of a lot more dangerous than this poster could ever be.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t find the poster at all troublesome. To the contrary, I give it rather mixed marks.

On the one hand, I really, really love the focus on affirmative consent rather than passive consent or the lack of a “no.” I’m frankly tired of “no means no.” I hate the idea that someone has to say no to get someone to stop touching them, rather than say yes before someone feels the right to touch them in the first place. I like that the poster actually defines consent as the presence of a yes rather than the absence of some kind of revocation of consent that is otherwise constantly presumed to be present. “She didn’t say no” is an incredibly repulsive defense, and one that seems to only be growing in popularity and acceptability. It’s very important to combat that.

On the other hand, I find the “no entry” symbol and further pun regarding “entry” in the text to be glib and all around off-putting. Rape isn’t about “entry,” it’s about violation, and that can take many forms. And it really just seems like the wrong time for sexual innuendo and wordplay.

Further, while I don’t find the image to be overtly sexual, that doesn’t mean I don’t find it objectifying. I’m tired of seeing women’s bodies detached from their person, women being represented by their bodies rather than their faces, and women’s bodies just all around being used as symbols rather than treated like they belong to us. I’m tired of the idea that if we don’t show a face, it’ll be more universal — personally, I think that showing a face is a much better reminder that women are people, with thoughts, and feelings, and minds of our own. Beyond that, if we are going to use women’s body parts as representations for women, I’m tired of seeing the same precisely shaped body parts over and over again. I’m tired of the idea that only a thin woman with a flat stomach and no cellulite is “good looking enough” to be raped. And while I think that it would have been just as problematic, if not more so, to feature a woman of color in this kind of disembodied, headless, and objectified position, it is incredibly frustrating and disturbing that white women are so persistently presented as the only real victims of rape.

Which is all to say that I’m not defending this ad as containing some kind of fabulous, model message. I’m attacking the aspect of rape culture that says rape is primarily about sex, rather than primarily about the desire to violate and debase a human being viewed as lesser than oneself. I’m attacking the aspect of rape culture that says men can’t help themselves, so we better be careful to not “give them a reason.” I’m saying that there are many, many legitimate grounds on which to critique anti-sexual violence campaigns, but those which reinforce rape myths shouldn’t be the ones we’re after.

Trigger Warning for discussions of police harassment and violence against trans* people.

The New Jersey police department is being sued after two Newark officers allegedly harassed a trans woman on the basis of her gender identity.

Diana Taylor of Newark said two officers steered their cruiser into her path as she walked down a street two blocks from her home on March 23, 2009. According to Taylor, the officers made fun of her wig and demanded she show them her identification. She didn’t have it with her, but she gave them her legal name, [redacted].

The two officers had placed a bet on Taylor’s gender before they blocked her way, she said during a news conference after the ACLU-NJ filed the lawsuit in Essex County Superior Court on Wednesday, Feb. 17. One said to the other, “You’re right. I owe you $10. It is a man,” Taylor recalled.

She further alleged the officers began tormenting her by calling her a “chick with a dick,” “faggot” and other derogatory names. Taylor added they further embarrassed her by questioning her sexuality as witnesses gathered.

She said the officers handcuffed her and took her to a police station where they searched crime databases looking for a reason to arrest her. Although they found she had no record, Taylor contends police continued to humiliate her by frisking her in a sexually intrusive manner.

What these officers have allegedly done is not in the least bit unusual in terms of interactions between police and trans* people. For many trans* people of all identities (binary, non-binary, agendered/non-gendered, etc.), but particularly trans women, and particularly trans women of color, law enforcement is entirely synonymous with violence.

Threats from police range from “only” misgendering and other verbal harassment, to the denial of medical treatment and other basic necessities in prison, to beatings, other physical assault, and sexual assault by police and/or while in police custody.

Indeed, just last week, a San Antonio police officer allegedly handcuffed and raped a trans woman while on duty.

And so, while I’m sure that someone is aching to tell me that “not all police officers are like that,” it doesn’t change the fact that there is a problem of violence on a systematic level. It doesn’t change the fact that for those living with marginalized identities, the police are not seen as protectors are good people doing their jobs, but as very real threats, and as downright terrifying. It doesn’t change the fact that we live in a culture that sanctions and encourages police violence, and perpetually excuses it with the rationalization that “they must have had a good reason.” It doesn’t change the fact that we live in a culture where trans* people are perceived as “deviant,” where supposedly “deviant” people are perceived as less human, and where bodies perceived as less human are perceived as bodies deserving of violence.

And the fact that all of this is true also doesn’t change the fact that our world should never, ever have to be a place where one can look at what was done to Diana Taylor and rationally think to themselves “thank god they only harassed her,” where one can be logically grateful that the sexual assault — and do not kid yourself that “frisking in a sexually intrusive manner” is not sexual assault — did not turn into an even more violent rape, where one can understandably breathe even the tiniest sigh of relief, because it could have been so, so much worse. That the world is that place right now is a complete and utter horror.

I wish Ms. Taylor the best of luck with her case. I hope she receives justice for what was done to her, and I praise ACLU-NJ for fighting on her behalf.

But history shows us that police brutality and other misconduct is rarely punished, especially when the victim is a person of color or trans* (and Ms. Taylor is both). And it shows us further that even when punished, won cases rarely result in substantial and sustainable change, because the small fear of an outside possibility rarely negates one’s overwhelming sense of superiority, power, and invincibility — and because even if it did, fear does not breed real respect. And as hard as winning a case against a police officer or force is, getting people to view other people not like themselves as real, live human beings is even harder.

via Transgriot

Trigger Warning for discussions of suicide, descriptions of non-consensual sexual conduct, victim-blaming and slut-shaming

The Tampa Bay St. Petersburg Times has printed the truly gut-wrenching, tragic story of a 13-year-old girl named Hope Witsell, who committed suicide after a photograph of her breasts, which she sent to a boy’s cell phone, was forwarded all over the school.

At the end of the school year at Beth Shields Middle School, the taunting became so bad that Hope Witsell’s friends surrounded her between classes. They escorted her down hallways like human shields, fending off insults such as “whore” and “slut.” A few days before, Hope had forwarded a nude photo of herself to a boy she liked — a practice widely known as “sexting.” The image found its way to other students, who forwarded it to their friends. Soon the nude photo was circulating through cell phones at Shields Middle and Lennard High School, according to multiple students at both schools. …  School authorities learned of the nude photo around the end of the school year and suspended Hope for the first week of eighth grade, which started in August. About two weeks after she returned to school, a counselor observed cuts on Hope’s legs and had her sign a “no-harm” contract, in which Hope agreed to tell an adult if she felt inclined to hurt herself, her family says. The next day, Hope hanged herself in her bedroom. She was 13.

Her death is the second in the nation in which a connection between sexting and teen suicide can clearly be drawn.

I recommend that you go read the full article, because despite the many problems with it, there is a lot of information there, some of which I will not have the time to discuss here.

As Veronica Arreola said on her Twitter, while the media insists on calling this a “sexting-related suicide,” it’s much more accurately referred to as a “slut-shaming suicide.” Because the photograph she sent is not what drove this poor girl to kill herself — the non-consensual spreading of the photograph, and the subsequent reaction that her classmates and all adults in positions of authority had to it seems to absolutely have been what drove her to despair. And that is a truly vital distinction to make if we actually care about the fact that a 13-year-old girl is dead, and why.

The set of circumstances here are increasingly common ones — and by “set of circumstances” I do not mean “teenage girls sending sexual photographs of themselves to others” but “the non-consensual spreading of said photographs.”

A poll conducted by her organization, WiredSafety, found that 44 percent of boys in co-ed high schools had seen at least one naked picture of a female classmate. Overwhelmingly, they shared the images with others.

And while everyone sure as hell seems to be worried about What! We’re! Teaching! Our! Girls! that they send the photographs, no one seems to be saying a goddamn peep about what we’re teaching our boys when they think that non-consensual sexual conduct is okay. Yet again, apparently consensual female sexuality is seen as a bigger threat to society — and to girls themselves — than non-consensual male sexual behavior perpetrated against them.

But it’s also important to note that while boys appear to overwhelmingly be the ones to receive these types of photos and then spread them, in Hope Witsell’s case, it was another girl who was the culprit:

Accounts vary, but many students describe the chain of events this way: The last week of school in June, Hope forwarded a photo of her breasts to the cell phone of Alex Eargood, a boy she liked. A rival girl, who was the girlfriend of another boy Hope liked and a friend of Alex’s, asked to borrow Alex’s phone on the bus. That girl found the image and forwarded it to other students.

Alex, now 16 and a freshman at Armwood High School, told the St. Petersburg Times last week that he deleted the photo. He does not remember whether he deleted it before or after the girl borrowed his phone. The mother of the girl told the Times that her daughter would not comment for this article.

Non-consensual sexual conduct is no more consensual, no more right, and no less devastating when committed by a girl against another girl. Bullying is no better when committed by girls — and anecdotal evidence seems to show that while boys are more likely to spread the photographs in the first place, girls are more likely to attack the victim afterward. Sexual harassment and slut-shaming does not magically turn into something else when it’s not boys doing it. And while a partial explanation, internalized misogyny is no more of an excuse for girls and women who commit such acts than rape culture is an excuse for boys and men.

And no matter who is the perpetrator, victim-blaming is still victim-blaming, which is something else Hope was made a victim of. First, she was a victim of cultural messages that told her that what her classmates did to her was her own fault:

At the same time, friends say, Hope knew that the biggest mistakes made were her own.

“She didn’t blame it on anybody,” said Rebecca Knowles, 14. “She realized it was her fault for sending them in the first place.

Secondly, she was a victim of attitudes like ones in that quote right above: attitudes that confirm and refuse to contradict this false belief. Even after she died because she couldn’t cope anymore, the newspaper is sitting there telling her that she was the one to blame. Hope didn’t believe that she made the biggest mistakes. She didn’t think it. Apparently, she knew it, because who could ever question the idea that if you send a nude photograph of yourself to another person, you’re obviously a slutty slutty slut slut who deserves whatever is coming to you?

The display of these kinds of attitudes went beyond words, though; they were also shown in actions. Hope Witsell was punished severely for taking the photograph. She was grounded for the summer. She was suspended from the first week of school. She lost her position as student adviser. And when another boy coerced her into sending another photograph, and she complied out of fear, she was again treated as a culprit rather than a victim:

No one knows how Hope met a group of boys staying across the hall. Rebecca Knowles, who is the FFA president, saw Hope talking to the boys by the hotel pool.

The boys were in their late teens and were not there for the FFA convention. They insisted she send a nude photo to them.

One of the boys was especially aggressive and called the room repeatedly on the conference’s last night, asking Hope for a photo of her breasts.

“They kept calling and they kept bugging her,” said Rebecca, 14, who said she was in the room but asleep. “I think she was just scared. One of our roommates was scared as well and said, ‘Oh, my God, just do it.’ They were scared and wanted to get it over.”

The boy calling didn’t have a cell phone. So Hope used Rebecca’s phone to take a picture of her breasts, then slipped it outside her door.

The phone, which Hope had left outside for the boy, was still in the hallway when an adult found it and saw the photo.

As for the boys who demanded the second photo, the girl who orginally forwarded the first photo, the girls and boys who harassed Hope in the hallways, chased her, taunted her, and made her life a living hell … there is not a single word indicating that they faced any consequences for their actions.

And while the article rightfully goes on at length about the certainly awful way that the school dealt with their knowledge that Hope was self-harming and in danger, there is no mention of how the school’s actions also contributed to her being in danger in the first place. The fact is that they punished her — they told her over and over again that she was being called a slut and a whore because of her own actions, that being a “slut” or “whore” are very, very bad things that deserve punishment and bring reason for shame, that sluts and whores deserve to be taken out of school and to be used as an example of what happens when girls display any form of sexuality (with their consent or not), and that sluts and whores cannot be trusted to advise other students, because apparently they have no moral compasses. And the fact is that they apparently failed to punish the other slut-shamers, sexual harassers, bullies, and sexual perpetrators for whom they were responsible.

Hope Witsell made the decision to end her own life. A whole lot of other people seemingly decided that keeping women in their place was a lot more important than protecting a 13-year-old girl, and than stamping out sexual misconduct. A whole society backed that second decision up.

And so while Hope Witsell made her decision, that decision rests not only on her, but also on the head of our misogynistic, victim-blaming, rape culture. And we can either wash our hands of the whole business, blame teenage angst, and say “you know how kids are,” or we can accept responsibility, and do our damnedest to try and change that culture and prevent this from happening again.

I know way, way, way better than to waste my time analyzing tabloid magazines.  Which is why I pretty much never do it, and I’m not going to bother saying much very now.  Because of course, we pretty much see the same shit above every fucking year around this time.

But I saw this magazine in the checkout line in the grocery store, and masochist that I am I had to see who was cruelly and ridiculously shamed on the cover this year with a “worst” label.  And upon seeing Uma Thurman there with the phrase “Saggy Boobs” emblazoned underneath her, it just hit me in the gut like nobody’s business. Because I’m at least used to butts similar to mine getting sneered at.

I’d say “way to go telling women that the way their bodies naturally look is repulsive,” but of course I know that’s the point of virtually everything in this magazine.  But. There is a little fucking thing in this world called gravity, and strangely enough, boobs are subject to it.  Especially big ones. (You know, the same kind women are supposed to feel bad about not having.)

It’s incredibly past the point of bad enough when we’re mocking the “lumpy butt” of a woman who is already thinner than most (while simultaneously mocking a woman for being too thin), as if bodies exist for judging and ones that carry an ounce of fat are hideous and shouldn’t be let out the house.  Can it get any worse when we’re mocking a body “flaw” that is not only shared by huge portions of the population, but that we also can’t even pretend can be “fixed” by spending every waking hour of your life in the gym?

Finally, they’re at least acknowledging the truth that it’s not about getting women to “take pride” in their bodies or “work harder” at them. It’s just about reminding us that close to all women’s bodies, no matter how much “pride” you take or how hard you “work,” will ever be considered good enough.

A man who counsels teens on how to remain sexually abstinent has been arrested and charged with sexual assault (from further descriptions, seemingly rape) of one of his “students”:

The girl told officers that Hoheb sexually assaulted her in his car in the parking lot of a Trumbull gym where he had stopped while driving her home in March.

In an interview with police detectives, Hoheb allegedly said he had been counseling teenage girls, including the victim, on how to say “no” to sexual advances from adults.

“I wanted the girls to understand that no matter who it may be; the pastor, another adviser or myself, they should not be afraid to use the word no,” police said Hoheb told them.

Hoheb also allegedly told police the girl had expressed interest in him, but he was determined to “nip it in the bud.” Although Hoheb initially denied having sexual contact with the girl, police said he later admitted having sexual relations with her in his car.

I learned of this story through Thomas, who argues that the rape in this case is consistent with the teachings of the abstinence counselor, as both abstinence-only teachings and sexual assault work off of a model where sex is seen as a commodity and female bodies are treated as sexual property.  I don’t disagree with him.

I want to take it a step further though and more closely discuss the counselor’s rather transparent excuse that he was attempting to teach the girl how to say “no.”  Yes, it’s an excuse, quite clearly, for how he was not really responsible for his actions because he was role playing, and she just misunderstood.  It is, in many ways, a variation on an old standard.

But in other ways, I think, it points to another aspect of rape culture that goes beyond just the apologism of “rape is often a misunderstanding.”  It points to the aspect where it is seen as the responsibility of women to say “no.”

Yet again we find the problem with the “no means no” model.  Indeed, no does mean no, but far too often people interpret this as meaning that a lack of a no means yes.  The onus is not on both parties to ensure that the other partner, whatever their gender, is freely and willingly consenting.  It’s on a woman, in any male-female interaction, to say “no” or deal with whatever violence the man might choose to enact.

Of course, it is extremely important to teach everyone that they have a right to say no, and to give them the tools they need to say so with confidence.  I’ve written on this importance before, numerous times.  But that’s not the lesson taught in abstinence-only education.  Abstinence-only does not teach about sexual rights, consent and autonomy.  It teaches not of a right to say no or to say yes.  It teaches of a supposed responsibility for women to say no, and to do a damn good job of it.  It treats men as inherent predators, women as inherent prey, and women’s bodies as existing in a permanent state of sexual accessibility to men.

This dynamic is even more disturbing when Hoheb freely argues that he was teaching girls how to say “no” to adults.  As though a man who goes after a girl would be expected to even listen to a “no.”  As though, despite the fact that a girl cannot consent to sex with an adult, it still doesn’t diminish that responsibility on her behalf to actively deny the supposedly reasonably assumed right to sexual access.  As though if she does not say no, whatever the adult does is her own fault.

Yes, this man is giving an excuse for his actions.  On some level, however, like many rapists, he might actually believe it.  He was “teaching her to say no.”  And if she didn’t say “no” despite her understandable fear and the power differential, if she didn’t say it forcefully enough, or loudly enough, or with enough confidence, under this model he teaches, he would see himself as having a right to rape her.

Because her body is a temple of purity to defend, not an entity connected to a person with inherent rights.  Because “no” is the only word a woman can utter that matters, that gives her any value worth respecting.

You’ve probably seen a lot of media coverage lately around the phenomenon of teenagers sending nude or otherwise sexual pictures of themselves to each other, and the fact that a lot of parents, and more notably law enforcement officials, are really freaking out about it.

It wasn’t so long ago that I wrote about an outrageous case where a 15-year-old was arrested on child pornography charges for taking nude photographs of herself.  But these types of stories have since really taken off; and they’re even calling it “sexting” now, because what would a story about teenagers and sex be without more ways to make it inappropriately tantalizing?

Of course, the media seems to be taking notice not to talk about how girls are being exploited by law enforcement, and often the (usually) boys who they sent the photos to, but about how girls are Teh Slutty for taking pictures of themselves, and how poor boys are being punished for getting caught up in Teh Slutty themselves.  Like here at CNN, and in Thomas’ response to the article at the Yes Means Yes blog:

This article is not perfect, but it makes two really good points: First, that this is wildly and willfully excessive.

Should Phillip be punished? Yes. Should the six teens in Pennsylvania face consequences? Yes. But let’s kick them off cheerleading squads and sports teams. Make them do community service and take classes on sex crimes. Educate other teens on the dangers of sexting. Pay a price, yes, but these young people shouldn’t pay for this for the rest of their lives.

Second, that this ought to be a wake-up call that teen sexuality will develop, and that parents have a responsibility to shape it, which they cannot do by ignoring it

Now, what Thomas does here, again, is not new.  In the original article I wrote about, this issue also came up — the case of a girl taking photos of herself was compared with a case of a boy spreading photos of an ex-girlfriend without her consent.  And, in fact, he’s only agreeing with someone else presenting the problem.  So I could be accused of picking on Thomas here, but this upsets me precisely because I like Thomas, and because he wrote a really intelligent, much longer post on this topic recently.

This most recent post, on the other hand, totally misses the mark.  As Elizabeth says about a different but similar article: “it treats teens sending revealing pictures of themselves and teens sending revealing pictures of others without permission as if they were equivalent acts.”  And they’re fucking not.

In the CNN article, Phillip Alpert, an 18-year-old who shared pictures of his ex-girlfriend as revenge after a break-up and was convicted on child porn charges, is compared to three girls who sent pictures of their own volition to three boys, all of whom are charged with child pornography.

Do we not see the problem here?

Let me spell it out:  the problem is that the pictures are being treated as the problem.  And they’re not.  Whatever personal qualms you may have, there is nothing morally wrong, nor should there be anything illegal, about sending sexual pictures of yourself to another person so long as you’re doing so willingly, even if you’re underage.  There is, however, something gravely wrong with distributing sexual pictures of another person without their permission.

These are two radically different cases.  Six teenagers engaged in consensual sexual behavior that authorities disapproved of.  And one boy engaged in non-consensual sexual behavior.  But they’re being treated like the same damn thing.

No one, in fact, seems to care about the fact that there is a girl in Alpert’s case who had her trust an autonomy violated.  They just care a) that the dirty pictures exist in the first place and b) a boy’s life is ruined as a result of his own goddamn behavior.

We can debate whether or not Alpert’s actual punishment is appropriate.  Should he have been convicted of a felony for his actions?  Should he be forced to register as a sex offender?  Though again, I don’t think that the pictures themselves were the problem and the charges are therefore probably off, I’m not particularly interested in that at the moment.

I’m interested in the fact that CNN’s Mike Galanos seems to think that he only deserves to be kicked off of the school’s sports team (even though he now a legal adult).  And that the six teens who engaged in consensual behavior deserve exactly the same.  I’m interested in the fact that these two acts are being equated, and the fact that they are equated is probably precisely why there are so few laws out there to combat what Alpert actually did wrong.

And I’m interested in the fact that Thomas agrees that this is a wake-up call to parents regarding “teen’s sexuality.”  No, it should be a wake-up call to parents that their sons (and daughters — but primarily sons) may also engage in non-consensual sexual behavior and that they need to do something to stop it.  Not to stop their daughters from taking pictures of themselves because those boys just can’t help themselves, but to stop their sons from being abusive, misogynistic pieces of shit.  To equate what Alpert did with “teen sexuality” is not only belittling to teens who are expressing their sexuality in consensual and healthy ways, but offensive to all teenage boys, the majority of whom are not behaving like Alpert.

If I had a teenage son and a teenage daughter, I know which one I’d be most concerned about talking to.  And the fact that most of this country, at least if media representation is any indication, has the opposite answer tells us a whole lot about the kind of apologist rape culture we live in.

I said a few weeks ago that I was planning to cancel my subscription to Rolling Stone magazine, due to their repeated misogyny and other prejudice.

Well, I hadn’t yet gotten around to it.  But then, this issue just landed in my mailbox:

The subscription to “random misogyny mag,” as my husband just called it, is officially cancelled.  They also got this email, along with my cancellation:

Dear Editors,

As a loyal subscriber to your magazine for many years, I have written you many letters, with increasing frequency, about the repeated misogyny and other prejudice displayed in your magazine’s pages.  From allowing Matt Taibbi to use misogynistic and homophobic slurs like “cocksucker,” to calling a transgender woman a “tranny,” to wondering not how to end intimate partner violence but how oh how Chris Brown will rebound his sales figures, you’ve ignored each and every email, both actually and in spirit.  Opening up my mailbox and seeing two women simultaneously fellating an ice cream cone was the absolute final straw.  I just cancelled my subscription, and I won’t be coming back.

Not that your liberal publication wants feminist female readers like me anyway.  Treating women like human beings is so the antithesis of sex, drugs, and rock and roll!  Wouldn’t want to water yourselves down, right?  Next thing you know, you’d be publishing cover stories about a show like Gossip Girl!

Oh, wait.

Good luck to you in the dwindling print media sector, Rolling Stone.  When your readers are so disposable, you’re going to need it.

So, dear readers, any suggestions on how I should replace said music magazine subscription?  Spin sucks, Blender is just as misogynistic to the best of my knowledge, and I found Paste to be downright pompous.  I’ve seen Mojo in stores and it looks alright, but I’ll be damned if their international subscriptions aren’t outrageous.  So . . . thoughts?

Watching random music videos on TV last night, this commercial for the new Seth Rogen film Observe and Report kept playing over and over again.  The basis of the film seems to be that Seth Rogen plays a quirky (according to IMDB, bi-polar — so yay, we can likely expect lots of “jokes” mocking disability and mental illness, too!) mall cop, who has to solve the case of a man who keeps flashing women at the mall.

Well I think we can all agree that this is a totally awesome and highly amusing premise for a movie.  So we should probably be unsurprised to see that just a few seconds in, there is a rape joke:

I imagine that the “joke” within the context of the film might possibly be that the line “everyone thinks they’re fine until someone puts in ‘em something they don’t want in ‘em” is referring to something other than a penis. If that’s not the “joke,” then the joke is clearly just “Ha! A penis in a woman that she doesn’t want in her! Whew, rape is hilarious!”

But even if it is the case, the “joke” is still “Oh, hey, that sounds like he’s talking about a penis! In her, when she doesn’t want it in her! Oh man, saying things to women that makes it sound like you’re talking about someone raping them is hilarious!”

And regardless of the context within the movie? The joke in the trailer is clearly the first interpretation anyway.

Actually, this isn’t the exact same trailer that I kept seeing on TV last night.  In the preview I saw, we also get a scene were Seth Rogen’s character grabs the female lead and starts making out with her right after she demonstrates how completely drunk she is by throwing up all over the sidewalk.  Get it!  It’s a joke!  Drunk chicks are awesome because you get to take advantage of them!

You can also rest assured knowing that when I was searching for this particular trailer on YouTube, I came across another clip from the movie that portrays women who are the victims of sexual harassment or assault as hysterical, helpless, over-reacting, obnoxious — and yet funny! — bimbos.

Aren’t we so happy that the Apatow clan is constantly purported by the mainstream media to be taking over and reimaging the entire comedy world?  God knows that we weren’t going to find a whole movie based on rape jokes before they came along!

The latest from Sarah Haskins:

(If you can’t view the embedded video, click here.)

And for those of you who missed it, she also had a pretty awesome Op-Ed in the Washington Post on Barbie’s 50th birthday. (Yeah, I’ll admit it; that’s how I played with my Barbie, too.)

I so cannot wait to see Sarah at WAM!